Day 717: Not Pals

After a bartender’s dog was stolen from the bar by a patron (dog returned later, but it so happened that said bartender also had her home burglarized by someone else during the hunt for the dog) and now this, Pal’s is looking less and less attractive. More importantly, I have friends and colleagues who live from next door to within two blocks of this establishment and wonder if they are safe.

Update 1:nolareno has pictures of the bar after the stabbing. “[The assailant] has been in before and was cold and aggresssive. Tonight he just snapped for no reason. He was a military man according to staff.”

Nia Robertson, 30 … director of Housing and Urban Development [for the Road Home agency] was killed by an attacker in a Mid-City bar at the corner of North Rendon Street near Orleans Avenue. The victim’s throat was slashed and another unidentified patron was stabbed.

New Orleans has never, ever needed proper mental health care this badly. We are the most medicated and emotionally-overwhelmed city in America; as our craziness index goes up, the necessary help plummets. This is why I urge you to come to the Rising Tide conference on Saturday, August 25th and help Dr. Eban Walters jumpstart a much-needed information nexus on available mental health facilities in the New Orleans area. Any small help will go a long way.

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I always wonder about stuff like this. Before I moved into my neighborhood, there was a mini-crime wave. I rationalized it by the fact that the crimes were not random, as such. Meaning, one was a jealous boyfriend, and the other was also some sort of revenge crime.

I’ve been reading comments like this on the FSJ neighborhood association message board/list and thinking: I’m all for increased mental health services. But the guy had only been around New Orleans for two weeks. Even middle-class people in normal, non- circumstances have trouble paying for serious mental health care, or their insurance doesn’t pay for much in that area even if otherwise among the best. It’s not like whathisface (we shant speak his name–he had enough publicity) from Virginia Tech was getting mental health care, and this from a public campus with gamboozles of resources.

I’m not saying we should give up, or not get the services the area deserves, etc. But I don’t see a direct connection here. And the vast majority–this can’t be overstated–of mentally ill people are not prone to any type of outwardly directed violence.